


all's fair

by Anonymous



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Happy-ish anyway, Introspection, SO MUCH introspection guys, These are a few of my favourite things, cormoran-centric, the nature of love and war and loyalty, trying to always do the right thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 00:32:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13399605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Cormoran,” Robin says, quieter. “Please.”Cruelty or mercy?he’d asked Robin once on a night a little like this one, drunk and in the dark, her arm around his waist as she’d guided him home, and it’s the face of that soldier he thinks of now as he eases the door slowly shut, as Robin watches him, the shadows falling on her pale face. Had it been cruelty or mercy, the way that kid had looked at his destroyed leg and decided not to shoot?Maybe a bit of both,Robin had said.Maybe so.“Go home, Robin,” Cormoran says tiredly. “Make up with Matt." He pauses, swallows. "Go home," he says at last, leaning his forehead against the door, "to someone who loves you."Or: Somewhere the border is always being redrawn.





	all's fair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lovebeyondmeasure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovebeyondmeasure/gifts), [bethanyactually](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bethanyactually/gifts).



> I need to make very clear from the beginning that I wrote this fic not having read any of the books. My knowledge of this universe was based solely on the BBC TV series - particularly, my (non) knowledge of Leda Strike. 
> 
> In the show, they refer to her rarely, obliquely, and sadly - a combination my mind immediately seized upon to create a tragic backstory wherein she was married to Jonny Rokeby for years and loved him greatly, to disastrous consequences: something the Cormoran Strike Wiki has since informed me is, uh, aggressively not true. Christ. So please take note!!! In that sense (and hopefully only in that sense), this fic is very much canon-divergent.
> 
> There is also a pretty blatant Karen Joy Fowler reference in this fic. I hope you like it.

**“Christ. Your _secretary_. How did it start?” **

**“The way I noticed her,” he said. “It wasn’t the way you’re supposed to notice someone you work with.”**

\- _The Singer’s Gun_ , Emily St. John Mandel

 

* * *

 

“That Cornish giant,” Robin says one night, and Cormoran raises his head in surprise.

 

“Sorry, what?” he says, but even through the confusion he can feel a warm glow of affection in his chest. In the office, through all the sunlit hours of the working day, Robin is the very picture of professionalism: neat, pressed blouses; business skirts; her clear, delicate voice ringing out as she tucks a pen behind her ear, other hand picking up the phone: _Cormoran Strike’s office, how can I help you?_

 

But once evening approaches, once the two of them step into the pub for their now-regular after-work drinks sessions, he’s begun to see another side of Robin. This Robin is more relaxed, resting her elbows on the table across from him, eyes bright and her voice spooling out softer and more golden somehow in the warm smoky air, like her hair shimmering under the low lights. This Robin drops non sequiturs into conversations, absentmindedly, as if Cormoran should automatically know what she’s talking about, as if she just assumes they’ll be on the same frequency. It’s a kind of intimacy, if you think about it, and, oh, Cormoran has thought about it.

 

He wonders, sometimes, if this version of Robin – softer and more unguarded – is the version Matt lives with, gets to come home to every night.

 

(Or if maybe, just maybe, she’s only like this with him.)

 

“A Cornish giant,” Robin repeats, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, reaching out with her other hand for her beer. “You told me once that was what you were named after.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Cormoran says, blinking. He’s surprised she remembers that. “Yeah, I was.”

 

She smiles at him. “That’s unusual. What’s the story there?”

 

“There isn’t one really. It’s just that my mum loved the story, so I got stuck with the name.”

 

“But what story was that?”

 

Cormoran thinks back across the years, to his childhood room illuminated by the nightlight’s soft glow, his mother’s hand stroking the hair back from his forehead. _Right, then. Which story shall we do tonight, love? What about the story of Cormoran?_ _That’s always been my favourite_.

 

“D’you know St. Michael’s Mount?” he says, and Robin shakes her head. “Little island, up in Cornwall. Lot of legends have it that Cormoran the giant was the one that built it – carried a load of white granite from the mainland into the ocean, bit by bit, until it was done.” And for a moment, he is a child again, wide-eyed under his blanket in the dark, imagining the soft, shuddering echoes of a giant treading through the sand, through the night, leaving behind footsteps that the sea would have washed away by morning.

 

“Oh, that’s lovely,” Robin says. “Your mum must have really loved that island.”

 

“I don’t think so,” Cormoran says, brow furrowing. “As far as I know, she’d never even been. I think maybe she…” He trails off for a moment. Why _had_ Leda Strike loved that story so much? He’d never asked her, never really thought to.

 

In some versions of the story, the giant Cormoran had a wife who helped him build St. Michael’s Mount. Maybe that had appealed to her; the idea of having a partner who would walk into the night for you. A companion who would carry mountains if you asked them. A lover who would help you build something. A marriage that made islands out of oceans, land out of miles of dark sea. For Jonny Rokeby’s wife, that idea had probably been more mythical than any giant leaving footprints in the sand.

 

He swallows, pushing away the strange longing that’s risen up, suddenly, in his throat. Robin is still watching him across the table, and he forces a smile onto his face. “Maybe she just thought the name suited me. Big, lumbering giant and all that. You have to admit she was pretty spot on.”

 

Robin laughs, and he’s so absurdly glad for the sound of it. “She did _not_ ,” she says, amusement glimmering all through her voice like thread. “You were a baby when she named you. Babies don’t lumber.”

 

“I am a man,” Cormoran says haughtily, “of many talents.”

 

Robin laughs again, and they sit there in companionable silence for a while, sipping at their drinks. And then:

 

“I actually thought a cormoran was a bird,” Robin says thoughtfully. “I’m sure I read that somewhere. Or heard it on the telly.”

 

Cormoran squints for a moment; he’s a little fuzzy from the mist of alcohol, but he’s had more experience peering through that mist that most. “Oh, you mean a _cormorant_ ,” he says. “With a T. Seabirds, aren’t they? There are actually quite a lot of them up in Cornwall, now that you mention it.”

 

“Cormorant!” Robin says triumphantly. “See? I was almost right.”

 

“Almost,” Cormoran agrees. “Could very well be my mum named me after them as well. Cormorants lumber too.”

 

“ _Stop_ ,” Robin says, a smile tugging at the side of her mouth.

 

“I’m just saying,” Cormoran says, throwing up his hands, unable to hide his own grin spreading across his face. “I’m impressed, though. Hadn’t pegged you for an ornithologist.”

 

“I am a woman of many talents,” Robin replies, and Cormoran huffs out a laugh. They’re quiet again, and Cormoran can’t help his gaze from sliding to the delicate watch wrapped around Robin’s wrist. It’s getting late. Somewhere, Matt must be waiting for Robin to come home, the same way there is no one waiting in Cormoran’s empty flat, no island in any of his vast oceans.

 

“Wouldn’t it be funny, though?” Robin says. She’s looking into her drink, running a finger absentmindedly along the rim of her glass. “If your name _was_ Cormorant? Then we’d be Cormorant and Robin.” She laughs, just a little, looking up at him. “Can you imagine? _Real_ ornithologists would probably have a field day with that one. God, what a pair we’d make.”

 

And Cormoran closes his eyes, just for a moment, against the flash of her engagement ring as her hand moves. He’s seen that glint of light before, on the barrel of a gun pointed towards his chest, and he isn’t sure he can look down again into the mouth of something that might just kill him. He isn’t sure he can fight another war. He isn’t sure he can survive any more footprints trodden into the sands of his heart.

 

“What a pair,” he echoes, a little sadly, and drains the rest of his beer.

 

* * *

 

When Cormoran is fourteen years old, he learns about the Vietnam War.

 

He slides a videotape his social studies teacher has assigned them for class into the player, and sits on the sofa with his parents as President Nixon flickers to life on the telly. Nixon is busy redrawing the Cambodian border and explaining to them that they are not really invading Cambodia, because the border was never where they have always thought it has been.

 

Leda Strike swallows the last of her wine. “My God,” she says. “The man may be right. Just now, just out of the corner of my eye, I saw the border jump.”

 

“Propaganda,” Cormoran says sagely, nodding his head. “We learned about that in class.”

 

“Lies, you mean,” Leda says, and Cormoran glances at her. His mother has seemed different lately: sharper, more prickly. She drinks a lot more than she used to. She goes to bed early, but sometimes Cormoran can hear her crying through the bedroom door.

 

“Well, you know what they say, lad,” Jonny Rokeby says, and his voice is all good-natured jocularity, but Cormoran can see the way he’s looking at Leda uncertainly out of the corner of his eye. “All’s fair in love and war, eh?”

 

Leda stands up so abruptly she almost knocks the coffee table aside, and sweeps out of the room. Jonny blinks at Cormoran for a moment. “Women!” he says, spreading out his hands, but Cormoran is already turning his back on him, getting up to follow his mother.

 

He finds Leda in the kitchen, standing by the sink, looking out of the window. Her wineglass has been topped up again, and is trembling just slightly in her pale hand. “Don’t you listen to him,” she says sharply. “Don’t you _ever_ listen to _that man_ ,” and Cormoran will never know if she means Jonny Rokeby or Richard Nixon or any of the countless other men in the world who transgress boundaries because they feel like it, who cross lines they shouldn’t just because they want to, no matter the casualties they leave in their wake.

 

She turns to look at him, and Cormoran has never seen his mother look so old. Behind her the sun is setting in a hundred glorious shades of pink and gold, but here in the kitchen it is dark. One day Cormoran will look back on this memory and recognise it for the first time Leda Strike discovered her husband’s infidelities.

 

She raises a hand to cup his cheek, stroke her son’s face. “Some things are wrong, Cormoran,” she says. “No matter what people say. No matter what you feel. No matter if you think it’s right. Some things are just wrong. Remember that.”

 

“I will,” Cormoran says.

 

* * *

 

**A small list of things people get wrong about Cormoran Strike all the time:**

 

 **1**. His name – it really _is_ Cormoran Blue Strike. Yes, _really_.

 

 **2.** No, he cannot get you Jonny Rokeby’s autograph. (He can, however, get you a piece of paper with ‘World’s Biggest Arsehole’ scrawled on it – it’d be pretty much the same    thing, after all. Funnily enough, though, no one’s ever taken him up on that.)

 

 **3.** Actually, _he_ was the one who left Charlotte. Never bloody mind the fact that she went and got engaged just a few weeks later. _He_ left _her_. Got that?

 

 **4.** Of _course_ it bothers him when people say things about his leg, or lack of it. (“I’m quite amputee-curious, actually,” he can still hear Ciara Porter saying sometimes, and why had he gone along with it? Why hadn’t he said anything, given voice to the anger and shame rising up in his throat?)

 

And finally:

 

 **5.** Contrary to popular belief, he isn’t in love with Robin Ellacott. Of course he isn’t.

 

* * *

 

“God, I’m sorry!” Robin says, as Cormoran groans, pressing his jaw into his hand. “Here, let me see – God, I had no idea –“

 

“You couldn’t have known,” he grunts, wincing as Robin leans closer to him, reaching out to touch his skin. “How was _anyone_ supposed to know that a woman would come charging out of my office and deck me in the face? It’s hardly an everyday occurrence.”

 

“No?” Robin says, her voice as light as the fingers gently probing his jaw. “I rather feel like it is, if I’m honest with you.”

 

She’s referring to the first time they ever met, of course, when Charlotte had hurled an ashtray at him and stormed out of his life, and there are days when that memory cuts deep, but today Cormoran can’t help a laugh huffing its way out him. She’s right, after all – if you look at it that way, it does seem a little ridiculous. “This office is a bloody war zone,” he pronounces.

 

“It really is,” Robin agrees, drawing back to rummage in the drawers of the desk. “I know there’s a first aid kit around here somewhere – it’s nothing too serious, but I want to swipe a bit of antiseptic on it just in case, she was wearing a ring that I think may have cut you a bit –“

 

“I’d noticed,” Cormoran says dryly. “What on earth happened here, anyway? Who was she?”

 

“You didn’t recognise her?”

 

“By the fist swinging towards me? Not really.”

 

Robin shakes her head, exasperated fondness in the way she rolls her eyes at him. “That was Anna Lyons, remember? That woman who came in here last week because she suspected her husband was having an affair –“

 

“Your first proper client,” Cormoran says, and watches the way Robin ducks her head for a moment, her curtain of hair not quite managing to obscure the proud flush on her cheeks.

 

“Right, yeah, of course. And?”

 

She sighs, straightening up with the first aid kit in her hand. “Well, she was right. He was cheating on her. She didn’t take the news too well.”

 

“You don’t say,” Cormoran murmurs, as she pulls out a tube of antiseptic and a piece of gauze.

 

“Shhh,” Robin says, and suddenly her fingers are on his cheek, gently pulling his face towards her. “Don’t say anything for a moment, alright? Just let me put this on.”

 

Cormoran nods, soundlessly, as she leans toward him, wiping the gauze across the already spreading bruise on his jaw, her movements feather-light and delicate. He’s almost glad that she told him to be quiet – he doesn’t think he’d be able to say anything right now.

 

This close, her eyes are more green than blue. He can see every red streak in her hair. He is almost painfully aware of how close they are, his heart wild and unsteady in his wrist.

 

“There,” she says softly, and for one second they stay like that, closer than they should be, closer than they have ever been, eye to eye. He watches the way her pale throat moves as she swallows, the way her pulse seems to be just as fast as his own. All it would take is a slow tilt forward, the slightest breeze to push over the dominos just waiting to fall.

 

Then she blinks and pulls back, her hand falling away from his jaw. “You,” she says, and then clears her throat. “You should probably put some ice on that as well.”

 

“Yeah,” Cormoran says, his voice hoarse. He swallows. “I will.”

 

They don’t say anything for a moment, so Cormoran reaches out and pulls the sheaf of photographs lying on the desk towards him, just to give his hands something to do. They’re good, and he makes a mental note to tell Robin that once his treacherous heart has slowed down a bit: long-focus lenses are difficult to handle, but these shots are clear and sharp, revealing the damning evidence of Anna Lyons’s husband’s indiscretions in every detail.

 

Robin sighs. “I do feel sorry for her, you know.”

 

“So do I,” Cormoran agrees. “I’d probably feel sorrier if I didn’t look like I’d gone three rounds with Mike Tyson, though.”

 

She tilts a half-smile toward him, reaching back to push an errant piece of her hair behind her ear. “Transference,” she says. “That’s what it’s called. When the feelings of one person are redirected toward someone else. It was never really you she wanted to hit, probably. You just happened to be –“

 

“The first bloke in punching distance?”

 

“Exactly,” Robin says, a reluctant grin creeping up the side of her face. They’re quiet a while longer – it’s almost the end of the day, evening’s soft glow misting through the windows, the streetlights just beginning to flicker on in the gathering dark.

 

And then: “Do you think she’ll get a divorce?”

 

Cormoran blinks at her, but Robin is looking out the window. “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe. That’s not any of our business. Our part of the job is done. I never know what happens to them, after.”

 

“I know,” Robin says after a slight pause. “I was just wondering. I just… God, I don’t know what I would do if Matthew ever cheated on me.”

 

The ubiquitous ring glitters on her finger. Cormoran looks away. “I’m sure he’d never –“

 

“No! God, no, I know. I know he’d never do that. But at some point in a relationship, everyone thinks about the worst, right? Even just for a moment?”

 

“I didn’t have to,” Cormoran admits. “I knew from the beginning that Charlotte cheated on me. Loads of times.”

 

An array of complicated emotions plays its way across Robin’s face when he says that: shock, anger, disgust, sadness. “ _Cormoran_ ,” she says. “I’m so sorry.”

 

“Don’t be.”

 

She’s quiet for a moment, but it’s the quiet she gets when she’s gearing up to say something, and sure enough: “Then why – I mean, why –“

 

Cormoran shrugs. “I don’t know. I loved her, I guess. That’s what it all comes down to, doesn’t it? You can forgive anyone anything if you love them. And maybe also because…” He trails off, rubbing his jaw – hissing in surprised pain when the bruise flares up beneath his fingers.

 

“I guess,” he says at last, “because she said it was never really cheating when she did it. It was only ever sex, she said. Charlotte always came back to me in the end, and maybe that’s what counted the most.”

 

“What does _that_ matter?” Robin says indignantly, eyes flashing. “Cormoran, that’s _horrible_ , and she was a horrible person to do that to you – I’m sorry, but it’s true. You know that, right? What, just because it was only physical means it wasn’t cheating?”

 

“I don’t know,” Cormoran says, turning to look at her. “If it wasn’t physical at all, if it was just an emotional connection – does that mean it’s not cheating either?”

 

The question trembles in the air, and for one choking moment Cormoran wants to pull the words back into his throat, erase the way they sound so much like an accusation. Robin looks frozen in front of him, her delicate profile half-lit in the half-light, her lips parted slightly.

 

And then:

 

“I don’t know,” Robin admits, and she sounds very tired, suddenly, her words less a statement than a quiet confession, and Cormoran has to close his eyes for a heartbeat. Somewhere Nixon is always explaining that the border has never been where you thought it was, all along. Somewhere Leda Strike is always having her heart broken.

 

It’s starting to get painful, just a little, looking at her, so Cormoran does what he always does whenever things start to hurt.

 

“Know what we need?” he says. “We need a drink.”

 

* * *

 

“To Robin!” Cormoran says, raising his glass, and Robin blushes as Matthew raises his pint as well, wrapping his other arm around her waist. “And to solving your very first case!”

 

“Cheers,” Matt agrees, tapping his glass against Cormoran’s, throwing a tight smile his way.

 

“It was hardly a case,” Robin protests. “Hardly a murder mystery or anything, just your standard philandering husband situation –“

 

“All the same,” Cormoran says. “You did brilliantly.”

 

“Thanks,” she says softly, and Cormoran smiles at her.

 

“So does that mean you’re an official partner now?” Matthew cuts in, his eyes glittering. “Strike and Ellacott?”

 

“One case does not a partner make, I’m sorry to say,” Cormoran says casually, trying to disguise the way his pulse has stuttered at the way his and Robin’s names sound together. _Strike and Ellacott_. “You’ll still have to work your way up. But if I’m honest, it probably won’t take very long. All the clients love you, after all. They’ll be queueing around the block for you to take on their cases! Just wait,” he says to Matthew, half-smiling at Robin. “She’ll knock me right out of business, she will. She’ll be the breadwinner of the office.”

 

“At least she’ll be a breadwinner somewhere,” Matt says, and -

 

\- and Cormoran watches the words hit Robin like a physical blow, the way her head actually jerks back in surprise, her already pale cheeks draining of colour. “ _Matt_ ,” she says, and the anger that roars to life in Cormoran’s veins is immediate and visceral.

 

“Here,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. “That’s out of order, mate.”

 

“It was a joke,” Matthew says, spreading out his hands. “Robin, you know it was a joke, right?”

 

“I pay my way,” she says to him quietly, as if Cormoran isn’t even there, her voice low and shaky. “I pay for my half of the bills, and you _know_ it. I don’t understand – why are you –“

 

“I know,” Matthew says. “I _know_. It was a _joke_ , Robin, Jesus. I’m not saying you don’t. I’m just saying – well, you’re not exactly raking it in, are you?”

 

“And you _are_? I’m sorry, did I miss the part where we’re millionaires?”

 

“Yeah? Well, at least at my ‘ _bland, corporate job_ ’ – “ Matthew says, hurling the words at her, and Cormoran hears Robin suck in a breath, “they pay me a damn sight better than what you’re making!”

 

Robin is trembling all over, angry tears glittering in her eyes, and Cormoran has to curl his fingers around the edge of the table to keep from rising to his feet and decking the other man in the face. “I really think you should apologise,” he says slowly, and Matthew whips his head around to glare at him.

 

“Stay out of this, Strike,” he says, almost snarls. “This has got nothing to do with you.”

 

“I pay Robin’s salary,” Cormoran points out, trying not to grit his teeth. “If you’ve got a problem with how much she’s earning, it’s got everything to do with me.”

 

“Yes,” Matthew shoots back, eyes narrowed. “Everything seems to have something to do with you lately, doesn’t it, _Cormoran_?”

 

“ _Enough_!” Robin says suddenly. “We are _not_ discussing this here, Matthew, and I think we’d better get home _right now_. Call a cab.”

 

“Fine,” Matthew says, already halfway out of his seat. Cormoran watches him stalk his way over to the door and slam outside before he turns his attention back to Robin, who is sitting very, very still.

 

“Robin –“ he starts, but she interrupts him.

 

“I’m sorry, Cormoran,” she says, not looking at him. “Matthew was completely out of line tonight, I don’t know why – maybe he had a bit too much to drink, but that’s no excuse –“

 

“Don’t apologise for him,” Cormoran says, but she shakes her head.

 

“I’m not,” she says, and slants a quicksilver smile at him, there and gone in a blink. “He was out of order, Cormoran. I’m not apologising for him. But I’m sorry anyway.” Her gaze slides past him, to the door. “I should go. I…”

 

“It’s alright,” Cormoran murmurs, and closes his eyes as she picks up her bag and brushes past him, leaving him there alone.

 

Robin texts him later that night, his phone screen lighting up blue in the darkness of his flat. _Matthew says to tell you he’s sorry_ , the text reads. _he’s had a lot going on at work. not an excuse – and I’m going to straighten that out with him – but hope you understand anyway._

 

 _it’s fine_ , he replies. _see you tomorrow._

 

 _goodnight_ , Robin replies, and Cormoran lies awake for a very long time afterwards, staring into the dark.

 

* * *

 

 **5**. Of course he isn’t in love with Robin Ellacott. If anything, it’s just a crush. She’s absolutely gorgeous, isn’t she – all cream and rose and gold, that waterfall of strawberry blonde hair and the slope of that delicate neck and those cat eyes. He’d be daft to think otherwise.

 

(And even if _he_ didn’t admit that fact to himself, there’d be plenty of others who’d admit it for him. “We should have a jar,” he’d told her once. “If we put in a pound for every single time someone’s mentioned how fit you are, we could probably afford to get some posher biscuits for the office.”

 

“And if we put in a pound for every single time you’ve told somebody _off_ for saying that about me,” Robin had replied, smiling, “we could probably do away with biscuits altogether! Start serving clients cake.” She’d hesitated, twirling a pen in her fingers. “That was a thank you, by the way,” she’d said at last. “Thank you for doing that.”

 

“Well,” Cormoran had said, and they’d looked at each other for a moment, the afternoon light slanting in through the windows soft and warm. He’d coughed a little. “Don’t thank me. It’s jealousy, really – I mean, nobody ever comes in here saying how fit _I_ am – “

 

Robin had laughed out loud at that, and Cormoran remembers this moment mostly because of that alone, that beautiful, startled sound that had escaped her pale throat. Robin smiles often, and he knows she has a wickedly sharp sense of humour, but she rarely ever laughs, not like this, not something real and true pulled up deep from somewhere in her stomach, and for a moment he’d let himself bask in it.

 

“And here I thought chivalry wasn’t dead,” she’d said, amusement all over her face. “I suppose it was too much to expect, what with the advent of digitalisation and everything.”

 

“Digitalisation?”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Robin says, something sly and delighted curling at the corner of her mouth. “Hadn’t you heard? Digitalisation’s ruined everything. People just aren’t writing love letters anymore, for example -" 

 

Cormoran had groaned, so long and so loud that Robin had collapsed into laughter again, her hair shimmering in the sunlight – )

 

So. It’s a crush. That’s all it is.

 

* * *

 

When Cormoran is twenty years old, he learns about the Afghanistan War.

 

One night in the barracks, when Cormoran’s whole body aches with how long it’s been held at attention, collapsed on the bunk with his eyes perpetually full of dust and the heat pressing oppressively down on him, and all he wants to do is _sleep_ , he has never been this tired in his entire life –

 

Farris’s voice breaks the silence. “What,” he says, “do you guys miss the most about home?”

 

“Shut up, Farris,” Johnson grunts from across the room, and Cormoran is glad for it, if only so that he doesn’t have to.

 

“I’m just wondering,” Farris says, his voice quivering. Farris, at nineteen, is even younger than Cormoran, and looks it too – all wide green eyes and slender hands. Christ, the kid doesn’t even really need to shave yet. “Maybe it would help if we talked about it. Don’t you lot get homesick? I do.”

 

They’re all quiet for a moment, and then Cormoran finds his voice, turning over on his side to face the wall. “Talking about it won’t help anything.”

 

There’s another silence, and then Farris says, as if Cormoran hadn’t even said anything, “I miss tea. I’d kill for a good cup of tea, you know?”

 

“Shut up,” somebody else grunts, but it’s half-hearted now, more uncertain.

 

“Scones,” Farris continues, almost as if he’s speaking to himself. “Digestives. Yorkshire pudding. My mum’s Sunday roast.”

 

“Hungry, are you, lad?” Adebayo remarks, but the jibe is only perfunctory. The silence in the barracks has a different quality now, almost expectant. Almost as if they’re waiting for something.

 

And then Miles says, “Rain.” He huffs an awkward laugh, shifting in his bunk: Cormoran can hear it in the dark. “I know that sounds mad. Christ, if I was back home now, I’d be talking to the missus about moving to Aruba or something. Never could stand the rain back then. But it’d do me a world of good to see some now. There’s something unnatural about all this desert.”

 

He spits, and there’s a rumble of assent from all around the room. Johnson ventures, his voice rough: “Speaking of the missus. That’s what I miss the most. My wife.”

 

A beat, and then: “I miss Johnson’s wife too,” Rex says, to raucous cheers and guffaws, Johnson laughing loudest of all. It goes on like this for a while, confessions and jokes traded in equal measure under cover of darkness, until Farris says finally: “What about you, Cormoran?”

 

“Yeah, Strike!” Lee echoes. “Go on, what do you miss most about home?”

 

Cormoran doesn’t even have to think about it: he’s had an answer ready in his mouth ever since Farris first asked that question.

 

“Green,” he says. “The colour green.” _I grew up in Cornwall_ , is what he doesn’t say. _I am so tired of all this endless sand. Give me the hills. Give me the slopes. Give me the colour of every blade of grass._

 

(Years later, he will pause on a staircase and feel something in his chest give way at the sight of Robin in front of a mirror, her dress just the colour he’d dreamed every night during the war, every curve and flare of her body an echo of the Cornish landscape he’d loved and left behind. She will look like everything he’d clung to in a desert night, homesick and so weary. She will look like home.

 

“What do you think?” she will ask him, and because Cormoran is a bloody idiot, all he will manage to say is, “Yeah.”)

 

* * *

 

“Everything alright with Matthew?” Cormoran asks, when Robin comes in the morning after the debacle at the pub.

 

“Fine,” Robin says, a little awkwardly. “Like I said, Matt’s had a rough time at work lately, and the pressure’s just been getting to him a bit. He didn’t mean it. I’m sorry he took it out on you.”

 

“It’s fine,” Cormoran says. “As long as everything’s alright with you?”

 

“It’s fine,” Robin repeats, throwing him a faint smile, and spends the rest of the day at her desk. It’s a quiet day for both of them in the office, but there are times when Cormoran looks up, through his half-open door, and sees the flash of brightness that he knows is Robin’s ring, catching the light as her hands move, tapping away at the keyboard. He watches as the light flares and dims, flares and dims.

 

At one point he finds himself studying it intently, all his paperwork forgotten. Flare. Dim. Flare. He knows it’s stupid, but it puts him in mind of an SOS signal: three short, three long. He wonders what would happen if he stood up and told Robin, right here, right now, that Matt would never make her happy. What would happen he slid that damned ring off her finger himself.

 

But just because you want to see a distress signal doesn’t mean there’s a damsel behind it, Cormoran. Just because you think a relationship should end doesn’t mean you should be the cause of its imploding. Some things are wrong. No matter what you feel. No matter if you think it’s right. Remember that.

 

* * *

 

 **5**. Alright, maybe it’s not just a crush. Maybe there’s something real and genuine about the affection that sits up in his chest whenever he sees her, something almost awful in the tenderness he feels. Maybe there’s something about how sharp and smart and funny she is, how compassionate, how this girl can pull on a fake accent and false identity just as beautifully as she can pull off a green dress, how she plows through fields in a car as fearlessly as she charges after a murderer in the streets.

 

Maybe it’s the fact that he even _knows_ what affection is with her; how he recognises in himself this emotion that he almost never had with Charlotte. With Charlotte it was tempests and the storm, passion and fervour and everything going on full blast, all cylinders firing. He’d loved her, but he’d been broken by her too.

 

But Robin makes him feel… happy. He never knew, before, what it was like to just be made happy by someone else’s presence: not to feel like his heart is beating too fast in his chest, not like he’s on the edge of a very great fall, but just... still. At peace. Warm all over, like his heart is pumping sunlight whenever he is near her.

 

So maybe all of these things are true. Maybe it’s not just a crush.

 

* * *

 

 

**What the word infidel means:**

 

 _Infidel, n._ A heathen, a pagan. A word Cormoran heard time and time again, back during the war in Afghanistan. Rebels, hiding in the hills, launching guerrilla attacks under cover of darkness.

 

**What the word infidel should mean:**

 

 _Infidel, n._ Someone guilty of infidelity.

 

* * *

 

And one night Robin shows up outside his door, trembling, her eyes too bright, and because Cormoran is a great bloody idiot, instead of _What’s wrong?_ or _Are you okay?_ the first thing he says is, “What are _you_ doing here?” Not that he isn’t always happy to see her, but it’s raining outside, and it’s one in the morning, and he’s in his boxer shorts, for God’s sake. Oh, Jesus, he’s in his boxer shorts.

 

“Cormoran,” Robin says, and swallows. “I’m sorry to disturb you – I would’ve gone somewhere else, but I couldn’t think of where else to go – I didn’t want to infringe on anyone else, everyone else I know in London has got a family, a wife and kids, and since you don’t have any – _shit_ , that came out wrong, I didn’t mean it like that –“

 

“Robin,” Cormoran cuts in gently, looking at the way her damp hair is curling over her coat collar, the jittery way she is drumming her fingers against her thigh. “Calm down, it’s alright – what’s wrong?”

 

She takes a deep breath, tilting her head up towards him. “Matt and I had a bit of a row –“

 

“ _What_? Are you alright, did he do anything –“

 

“ _No_ ,” Robin says emphatically, resting her hand gently on his elbow; Cormoran hadn’t realized until then that his fists are clenched. He unclenches them slowly, letting out a breath. “No, nothing like that, we just – we just got into a bit of a shouting match, and I just – I just couldn’t stand the thought of staying in that house.”

 

She bites her lip, brushing a strand of hair back from her face. “I thought it would be best if we just took a bit of a break for tonight, had some space, cooled down a bit.” And Cormoran knows what she is going to ask him even before she does, his heart sinking, and please, God, no – “And so I was wondering… Cormoran, could I stay here? Just for tonight? I’ll take the couch, and everything, I just – I just don’t feel like going home at the moment.”

 

“Robin,” he says softly, and doesn’t say anything else for a second after that. For a moment it’s just the two of them alone in the dark, on the landing, Robin near the top of the stairs the way she’d been the first time he’d ever seen her, when she’d walked into his life just as Charlotte had been walking out. This close, she is all half-lit curves and shadowy silhouette, water droplets beading down the soft line of her neck. He can almost smell the rain on her skin; something shivery and evocative in the air.

 

It would be so easy to lean forward, sweep her into his arms, into his flat. She’d come to him looking for shelter, and this is what friends do for each other, isn’t it? This would be the right thing to do. They’ve always been friends, always been partners, always had each other’s backs. _Strike and Ellacott. Cormorant and Robin_. What a pair they are.

 

But the border is always being redrawn. The war is always going on somewhere. And Cormoran doesn’t fool himself – he knows that whatever lies between him and Robin (and there _is_ something, why not admit it to yourself, Cormoran, why not admit, here and now in the dark, that there has _always_ been something between the two of you) will never rest easy with Matt. Letting Robin stay the night will only exacerbate the problem in the morning.

 

And Cormoran thinks, too, of all the times Charlotte had done this to him: stormed out after an argument, spending the night God knows where with God knows who, and how he’d always, always stayed awake after, waiting for her to come home.

 

“Robin,” he says, and even though there is a lump in his throat, even though he has to fight every impulse in his body to gasp out the next few words, he does. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

 

“Think of it this way,” Robin says, trying for a smile, even though he can see the tears glittering in her eyes. “At least you know I’ll be on time for work tomorrow.”

 

And Cormoran has to laugh when she says that, because it’s either that or cry. He is so tired. He looks at her, and notices that her feet are bare and crushed into her trainers, and it’s this sight that makes him close his eyes. The thought of her not even bothering to put socks on, just determined to get out of that house, away from her fiancé, as fast as she can – it breaks his heart.

 

“Cormoran,” Robin says, quieter. “Please.”

 

 _Cruelty or mercy?_ he’d asked Robin once on a night a little like this one, drunk and in the dark, her arm around his waist as she’d guided him home, and it’s the face of that soldier he thinks of now as he eases the door slowly shut, as Robin watches him, the shadows falling on her pale face. Had it been cruelty or mercy, the way that kid had looked at his destroyed leg and decided not to shoot?

 

 _Maybe a bit of both_ , Robin had said.

 

 _Maybe so_.

 

“Go home, Robin,” Cormoran says tiredly. “Make up with Matt.” He pauses, swallows the lump in his throat. “Go home,” he says at last, leaning his forehead against the door, “to someone who loves you.”

 

* * *

 

 

 **5.** And maybe Cormoran Strike does love Robin Ellacott, loves her the way bells love to toll for funerals, the way dew loves to sparkle on the lilies at Farris’s memorial, or on the roses at Leda Strike’s, or on the grass that now covers them both; loves her the way a bullet loves a gun, the way a desert in the hot Afghanistan night loves rain, the way politicians love to lie; maybe Cormoran Strike does love Robin Ellacott, the way children love bedtime stories in the dark, loves her with all his shambling Cornish giant heart, all his lumbering seabird self, loves her enough to do the right thing, always, always.

 

And maybe he’s had one whisky too many, but Matthew is not the only one who can have too much to drink, is he, that bastard, and maybe this is what he and that absolute tosser can have in common, besides the obvious: that they both love Robin Ellacott, and help me, Mother. Where is the border now? What is the right thing to do? I promised you I would remember, but I don’t know anymore, and I love her, and look, now, look, the whisky’s gone.

 

Nothing is fair in love and war.

 

* * *

 

 

“You look like hell,” Ilsa says, peering at him over the top of her spectacles.

 

“Then I look,” Cormoran manages to get out, “better than I feel.” He rests his forehead against the cool rim of his glass for a second – and _oh_ , actually, that feels really good. He might just stay like this for a while. Ilsa doesn’t say anything, and Cormoran is usually immune to silence, but this is a lawyer’s silence perfected over the years, one honed to draw confessions out of people. He sighs. “Just haven’t been sleeping very well lately.”

 

“Right. That’ll be why you smell like a distillery, then?”

 

Cormoran knows Ilsa; hears the concern hiding under the prickly question. “I’m alright, Ilsa,” he says softly. “Just a bad night.”

 

She watches him for a moment, and he thinks he can see her eyes soften behind her glasses. “When is the wedding again?”

 

“Whose wedding?” Cormoran replies, and Ilsa smiles at him, sadly, just a little.

 

They talk a little bit longer: about Nick, about Cormoran’s Aunt Joan, about Ilsa’s latest case – and it’s this last topic that sparks the idea in Cormoran’s brain.

 

“Ilsa,” he says at last, “can I ask you something?”

 

“You know you can.”

 

“You’re a lawyer.”

 

“Your powers of observation, Cormoran, are unparalleled,” Ilsa remarks, but she smiles at him as he halfheartedly rolls his eyes at her. “Have you ever considered a career in private investigating?”

 

“Bloody cheek,” Cormoran grumbles, and then straightens up. “Well, then, can I just ask… What do lawyers think about… doing the right thing?”

 

“We’re all for it, I’d imagine,” Ilsa says, and then frowns and says: “Although I suppose if enough people did that we’d be all out of a job. Let me get back to you on that one.”

 

“No,” Cormoran says, rubbing his jaw. “I mean… do you think you can ever do the wrong thing but for the right reasons? Or the right thing for the wrong reasons? Just…” He trails off, aware of her eyes on him. “Just. When is it okay to do the wrong thing? Or the right thing? Is there even a Right Thing? That was Right Thing with a capital R, by the way. And T. Christ,” he says, burying his face in his hands. “Forget I said anything.” The whisky is still hammering at his temples, and right now all he wants to do is collapse in his bed.

 

Ilsa is silent for a moment, and then she says: “What kind of lawyer?”

 

“What?”

 

“Well,” Ilsa says slowly, “if you were asking me as a prosecutor, I would say: yes, of course, Cormoran, there is always a Right Thing. Capital R, capital T.” A very faint smile at the side of her mouth. “That’s what prosecutors do. They say: this is the law, and this is the person who broke it. There is no middle ground.”

 

Cormoran is quiet. Outside a light rain has begun to fall, whispering against the windows. He watches the drops slide their way down the glass, and thinks of Robin’s damp neck the night before.

 

“But,” Ilsa continues, “if you were asking me as part of a defence counsel, I would say: nothing is black and white. There is no Right Thing. There are only a thousand shades of grey.” She looks at him. “Which is it, Cormoran? Are you asking me as part of the prosecution, or the defence?”

 

Cormoran thinks about this, and says at last, “I’m asking you as a friend.”

 

“As a friend?” Ilsa puts her glass down, reaches out to take his hand. Her fingers are strong and warm. “Then I would say: tell her, Cormoran. Tell her how you feel.”

 

* * *

 

 In the end, it’s Matt who changes everything.

 

Cormoran is standing in the street outside the pub, his breath clouding out in the cold air, and he is just debating whether he should take a cab – his leg is aching badly – or just brave the walk home, when he hears a voice beside him: “Strike.”

 

He turns in surprise and sees Matthew, his coat buttoned up to his chin, watching him. “Matthew,” he says, and immediately wants to kick himself for not saying, “Cunliffe.” (But what was this, a bad Western? What was with all this bandying about with last names, for Christ’s sake?) “What are you doing here?”

 

“I’ve _been_ here,” Matt says, jerking his chin to the pub behind them. “All night, with some mates. Just thought I’d pop out for a bit of fresh air.”

 

“Right,” Cormoran says, and doesn’t know what else to say. They stand there in uncomfortable silence for a bit, shifting from one foot to another in the cold, standing just a little too far apart because apparently it’s British law that two blokes can’t stand too close together. Cormoran isn’t quite sure why he doesn’t just say, “See you later, then,” and book it, but he doesn’t. Matt is staring at the ground, his jaw working, and Cormoran has a private investigator’s eye for a person’s little tells. Cunliffe wants to say something to him, and is just trying to work up to it.

 

“Listen,” he says, almost aggressively, blowing out a breath of air, looking up at the sky. “I just wanted to say sorry about the last time we went out for a drink. I shouldn’t have gone off like that.”

 

“It’s nothing,” Cormoran replies uncomfortably. “We’ve all had a bit too much to drink at one point or another. I’m hardly one to judge.”

 

A muscle shifts in Matt’s cheek, but he nods. Then he shoves his hands into his pockets and says, “So you’re coming to the wedding, right? Not long now.”

 

“Three weeks,” Cormoran says. “Not long at all.”

 

“No,” Matt agrees. He’s quiet for a moment, and then he adds, “Oh, right. I’ll probably need to sort out some of Robin’s annual leave with you later. Maybe a week or two. For the honeymoon and everything.”

 

“Right. Yeah, no problem.”

 

“You’ll be alright by yourself? Will you need to take on a temp or something?”

 

“For a couple of weeks? I think I’ll be alright.”

 

“Right,” Matt says. “But maybe you want to think about it for later on. For her maternity leave, and everything –“

 

The words hit Cormoran like a physical blow, hook deep into his spine, drive the air out of his lungs. Once a landmine went off under his feet, sent him flying backward, his back thudding hard into the soil. Once he felt just like this, his head ringing and his vision fracturing. For a second everything goes white. And then he manages to get out, “Is she –“

 

“No,” Matt says, unaware that Cormoran’s heart is only just starting up helplessly again in his chest, painful and breathless. “No, but, I mean. She will be, right?”

 

For a moment Cormoran thinks he can't have heard him right. "What do you mean?" 

 

“Well, you know what I mean. We’re going to have kids sooner or later, and I reckon after the wedding it’ll be a good time to try. Just something to keep in mind. Maybe you should consider looking into hiring other assistants.”

 

 _She’s not my_ assistant, Cormoran wants to snarl, _you bastard, you bastard, she’s my co-worker, she’s my partner, she’s my best friend_. Eventually he finds his voice, although it doesn’t sound much like him: too thin, too wavery.

 

“A bit premature for all that, isn’t it? Maybe we should wait and see what Robin thinks of all this.”

 

“What’s to think?” Matt says dismissively. “Sure, maybe we’ll need to work out some of the finer details, but of course she’ll be wanting kids.”

 

“Does she?” Cormoran says, and he’s facing Matthew head on now, looking right at him. “Has she ever mentioned that to you? Does she even know about this little plan of yours?”

 

“ _Little plan?_ ” Matt echoes, his mouth twisting. “What the fuck are you on about, mate? This isn’t some conspiracy, you bloody Sherlock. This is real life. This is what _happens_ in real life – people get married, people have kids. Just because _you_ don’t have anyone –“

 

“ _Does she know?_ ” Cormoran repeats, a roaring in his ears. “That you have this whole family plan mapped out?”

 

“This is none of your business, so shove off!” Matt snaps. “Of course she’ll want a family. Why wouldn’t she?”

 

“Either way!” Cormoran says, so loudly that Matt, even with the anger set into the lines of his face, takes a step back. “You should _tell_ her. You shouldn’t _assume_ that she’ll just know. You shouldn’t make her decisions _for_ her. She deserves to know,” Cormoran says, and because Cormoran Strike is and always has been a great bloody idiot, it’s only here and now, with the streetlights reflecting off the water pooled on the pavement, with his coat collar turned up around his neck and Robin Ellacott’s fiancé looking pale and angry across from him, that it was never really Matt he’s been saying this to, all along. The border has shifted, right when he wasn’t looking.

 

“She deserves to _know,"_ Cormoran repeats, almost to himself. "She deserves to have that _choice_. _That’s_ the right thing to do.”

 

That has always, he realizes, been the right thing to do.

 

“Go to hell,” Matt says, but Cormoran is already turning on his heel and leaving him behind.

 

* * *

 

When Robin comes into the office the next morning, Cormoran is already waiting for her.

 

“Hey,” she says uncertainly, threading her scarf out from under her hair, placing her handbag on her desk. “Matt came back last night all worked up and said the two of you had had a row? In the street? He wouldn’t tell me what it was about, but God, Cormoran! What happened?”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Cormoran says. “Robin – “ and when she lifts her head to look at him, her eyes so blue-green in the morning light, her hair falling away from her face – Cormoran feels his heart squeeze in his chest.

 

Robin Venetia Ellacott, love of his life, his St. Michael’s Mount, the island that Cormoran the giant built once, so long ago. The border is always being redrawn, but the island holds steady, through every storm, through every war.

 

This probably shouldn’t be the way to do this: not when he has shadows cut under his eyes after a sleepless night, not when the only thing he’s running on is four cups of coffee, not in this tiny office with the hazy sunlight slanting in through the dirty glass of the windows, but maybe there’s never a right time, or a right place.

 

Maybe there is only ever the Right Thing. Capital R, capital T.

 

The only way to know is to jump. The only way out is through. And so:

 

“Robin,” Cormoran says. “There’s something I need to tell you.”


End file.
